Chrome/Firefox: Internet dating is great, but what isn't great is finding out that the person you've exchanged messages with—or worse, met—has a history of violence, is a sex offender, or is dangerous. That's where Predator Alert for OkCupid comes in. It warns you if the profile you're viewing belongs to someone you're better off avoiding.

Predator Alert is a userscript, which means you'll first need to install Tampermonkey for Chrome, or Greasemonnkey for Firefox, and then install Predator Alert. Once installed, the add-on will prompt you to log in to your profile, and walk you through a number of questions related to consent and sexual violence. By answering the questions, the tool gets visibility into the answers other users provide to the same questions, and it's able to use their answers to raise the red flag if it finds someone dangerous. There's a a detailed installation guide and walkthrough here, and more detail on the nature of the questions at the link below.

Once you're all set up, the tool does the rest of the work for you. As you browse OkCupid, the tool will visually highlight any user's profile that's answered those same questions in a concerning way (namely, one that implies that at worst, they have or are willing to sexually assault someone, or at the very least don't care about the other party's consent.) Similarly, each time you open a user's profile, the tool snags the user's profile picture and runs it through the United States’s Sex Offender Registry (via CreepShield.com) for facial recognition matches. It'll display the match percentage next to their profile, and you can click it for more information (including a name and number of matches—this way you can see if there really is a match or not.)

Of course, none of this is a guarantee that the person behind the profile is actually dangerous, but given the way the tool matches answers to consent-related questions, it should definitely give you pause. Still, you have to make the decisions yourself, and give people as much benefit of the doubt as you see fit. It an additional tool in your online dating arsenal to help you make smart choices about who to contact and who to avoid. Hit the link below to download, and read more about the methodology behind the tool. You can also grab it directly from GitHub here. If you don't use OkCupid, there are Predator Alert tools for other networks as well, including Facebook and Twitter.